Just How Bad Is Fallout 4: Far Harbor on PS4?

I guess I just got lucky. I did everything there was to do in Far Harbor with very little issue.

Bethesda has never been known for its bug free games and have always had to release patches but in todays times it is pointless ruining the reputation of this dlc because of frame rates.... No game is released completed any more and updates are routine ... If your a hardcore fan of a franchise frame rates will mean nothing

This is clearly a bug, but while this may not be the main reason, it is one reason I don't buy expensions. Not only is the game finished before this point, I just don't see a need to keep playing quite a few months later. If these expansions would have come out much, much sooner, then I may have bought them.

Still not played much of this, i've done 3 side mission's. I'll get round to it one day. (hopefully)

I agree with you completely and we are paying real hard earned money and we expect as little issues as possible and i have yet to buy fallout 4 but i know the feeling thanks to the witcher 3 day one for me was horrible and i still remember it still loves the game though.

@Tukker24
"No game is released completed any more and updates are routine ... If your a hardcore fan of a franchise frame rates will mean nothing"

Yes, updates are routine. But is paying full price for 15fps routine? Hardcore fans don't want a slideshow for a game, even if they tolerate it out of love for said franchise.

Without consequences, this sort of thing will only get worse. "We can release a game with a single digit frame rate- it'll still score a 9/10 and everyone will buy it"

He did the right thing by holding them responsible. Developers care about MetaCritic averages. You start poking at those numbers and they will start taking notice, and perhaps, not repeat those same mistakes.

@Tukker24 Hopefully the next game will be 10fps then woo hoo.

20fps is the new 30fps it seems, too slow for me, I prefer 60 fps. Its pretty much a necessity for me to enjoy a game these days. Sad but actually true.

Lazy devs or maybe they just can't make a bug free game.

My friend has it on xbox and it seemed to work fine. Radiation storms + fog is what I wanted to see on digital foundry but I guess they didn't want to break the game haha

I think a lot of people have to learn that it's perfectly possible to criticise something that you enjoy. In fact, criticising something that you like often leads to better criticism.

I love the socks off Fallout 4, but I don't think anyone should be defending its performance on PS4 - it's downright appalling.

@GraveLordXD According to Digital Foundry, the game runs better on XB1 at least in terms of frame rate. On PS4, the foggy areas seem capped at 20fps but drop to around 15fps. On XB1 they are uncapped and seem to run close to 30fps - sometimes higher.

Its totally unacceptable to release any game, patch or DLC that cannot meet a set standard. 30fps should be the minimum standard - it certainly shouldn't drop below this on ANY platform! Its unacceptable but making developers accountable for sub-standard work seems impossible!

To a degree, I can understand issues with last generation consoles, the architecture of the PS3 was quite different from PC's and unique but not this generation.

Well that sucks. I know Bethesda is known for "ignoring" performance issues on PlayStation consoles but I remember playing Skyrim with very little trouble. Shocking I know but even before I ended up with a copy of the Legendary Edition it worked overall decent. I guess I got lucky

The performance sucks*, no doubt about that.

(*it's also a really good piece of DLC that you should pick up without hesitation once it gets patched)

I had almost no issue with Fallout 4 after 2 or 3 hundred hours, I've not played any of the DLC yet, I'll probably jump in at the end of summer. It's pretty pathetic and puts me off completely from pre ordering any Bethesda game in future.

@get2sammyb I have to admit that I was one of those who thought the review was harsh. However on reflection I completely agree with the score and I've now stopped playing it until a patch comes out, this is completely unacceptable and quite lazy as other recent games have shown that the console is capable of far more than this game can produce.

When I first played it I'd been messing about for several hours over building my settlement so the frame rate had already dropped so I didn't notice it at first. Then I bought Doom and played that for a while before deciding to have another go at Far Harbour and my God it's horrendous, I couldn't believe that so many of the same logo's appear on both.

After the likes of Doom and Uncharted it's really shown what sloppy work Bethesda have done with this game, from the increasingly last gen looks to the quite diabolical frame rate. Which is a shame as there is much to like but this needs to be patched immediately without any excuses about it being the PS4's fault because Naughty Dog and ID don't seem to have much trouble

I bought the season pass and was looking forward to this l, but have now been waiting to give it a try until a patch comes out. Totally unacceptable and guarantees that I won't be buying another season pass from Bethesda

It's nothing new people defending a games poor performance, amazingly people defended Skyrim on the PS3 which was an unplayable game. It's shocking people defending things like this especially after spending cash on it, it's probably why some developers release there game unfinished knowing some idiot is going to defend it.

A zero tolerance for poor frame rates on consoles is long overdue. The quality of content does not overcome poor frame rates. So any low review score given FH on PS4 is appropriate.

It is all about the fog. Go to the coastal town or Longfellow's island and the frames are ok. Now go inland with dense blurry fog and god rays and the frames drop and stay dropped to maybe 10fps.

@VenomSnake08 you got lucky on skyrim...on a brand new playstation3 i had to reboot skyrim every 40 mins to keep the framerate up and the game playable.

@get2sammyb

At the end of the day, it's a bit of a tough choice, I can understand sites like Push giving it a 4, I can also understand sites giving it higher marks.

If you listin to the US GAMER podcast, Kat Bailey gave it high marks, even on the PS4 (she played it on that console),......the girl who reviewed it for Videogamer also said it was still a playable alternative on the PS4 despite the frame rate.

Anyways, Ramsey tends to be a pretty solid reviewer, so I get where he's coming from, but somebody like me, I found it playable, and enjoyable, despite the hiccups.

I only had one frame rate drop in 20+ hrs I played. Guess I was lucky.

@NomNom Hmm,a few people have said that - i guess i'll give it a try then seeing as i've got the stupid season pass.I wonder how some gamers get lucky with it..Obviously its a major issue for most,i agree 100% its not acceptable.Like,great..thanks a lot for the slide show Bethesda,may we have the rest of the frames please now? Ever? No one knows..

Dear god! Now the DLC need a patch? This game is a mess, I'm very happy that I sold my yesterday.

@brendon987 I had a few friends that had to do that. I think the biggest issue I had was slight lag every now and then after I got above level 40 and maybe froze 3 or 4 times during my very first play through. But I wasn't so lucky on Fallout 3... Holy crap that lagged like crazy at the worst times lol especially during the DLC's but I survived.

I think Robert Ramsey's review is fair. You can only review what is in front of you and what is there is not up to standard of the original game let alone something playable. When you add in the price hike and the success of the game, reviewers need to review honestly like this to ensure publishers get the message. It doesn't mean anyone is dissing Fallout 4.

@ShogunRok spot on. You have a duty as reviewers to be critical of every game- sometimes people can misconstrue criticism as being unduly negative, when in fact it just means you're being objective. Keep up the good work, guys; it's reviews like these that make me value this site.

Haha this shot cracks me up, should have bought it on pc or x1. Anyways I'm off to play far Harbour with mods

@JaxonH Agree with you, Fallout 4 is bellow than the average game in need of updates, it's a joke running on an outdated engine. I tried so hard to like this game, but after 30 hours I could not play anymore, is so repetitive and offers very little fun.
I hope that Bethesda evolve, because almost every major company now is making better games.

I wonder if this is anything to do with the amount of saves the game has. Although i was back on Xbox 360 then, didnt the PS3 Skyrim have issues to do with saves affecting the game, or was that a different thing altogether?

Only reason i ask, is that some have stated they have been fortunate with the framerate.

Either way, i'll be holding off this until patched..

Reminds me of Perfect Dark on N64.

@themcnoisy Well loads of games in "the good old days" were only 20fps, like Ocarina of Time. The PAL version was capped at 17fps. Just think, people paid the equivalent of £90 for a game that only ran at 17fps.

Star Fox on the SNES was sub-20fps as well. One of the first ever 3D games, 3D Monster Maze, ran at only 6fps. Even somewhat recently, Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii only ran at 20fps too. Goldeneye also ran at sub-20, even dropping to sub-10 at points. Perfect Dark was even worse, even after it required the memory expansion thing.

It's amazing how many games run terribly and completely get away with it while games like TW3 and FO4 are notorious for terrible framerates.

It feels like Bethesda has some sort of grievance with Sony. I love their games, but it feels like they phone it in with all the nonsense bugs and crashes between PS3 and PS4. They cried tech limitations on the PS3, but honestly they have no excuse with the ps4. There are bigger, better looking games on PS4 that don't have these problems.

@get2sammyb I'm gonna have to call BS on the PC version being poorly optimized. I've played through with several mods and tweaks and have had zero problems for 100+ hours, and the expansion has run just fine on ultra for me and several friends.

While Bethesda releasing games in a broken glitchy mess that is patched over the course of months but in the end never actually completely fixed as Bethesda plain gives up on it is nothing new, it doesn't make it more acceptable, but fortunately for Bethesda, they often get a pass on it for some reason.

It's one of the reasons I buy Bethesda games on PC, and don't buy Bethesda games at launch, to wait for the patches, both official and unofficial (made by fans and modders picking up Bethesda's slack), and the console commands on the PC versions can be used to bypass bugs as well (which I've had to use more than once in the past with Bethesda games).

But one of the most enjoyable things about Bethesda games for me are the mods so I would have purchased it on PC anyway.